In regions of conflict it is often necessary for wheeled vehicles to use roads, tracks and other terrain that may have been mined or laid with other improvised explosive devices (IEDs).
Mines and IEDs can be fitted with a variety of different types of fuses however they are often fitted with fuses that are designed to detonate as a result of the wheel of the vehicle passing over them, such IEDs possibly including both pressure and time delay fuses. In the remainder of this document the terms mine and IED are used interchangeably and collectively, i.e. an IED may be a mine and a mine may be an IED.
By detonating as a result of the wheel passing over them, mines explode so as to inflict the maximum damage to the vehicle, wheel and the associated steering mechanism.
Relatively small amounts of explosive can easily disable a vehicle.
A mine clearing apparatus intended for use with armoured personnel carriers (APCs) is described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,915,728. In this invention a pair of rollers is pushed in front of the APC in front of the tracks and a further set of rollers is towed behind the APC.
The position of the rollers in front of the vehicle is adjusted to partially follow the path of the vehicle by a signal resulting from the position of a further roller set mounted behind the vehicle.
The invention disclosed here is for a mine roller system that can be attached to a host vehicle or is part of the host vehicle and is pushed ahead of the host vehicle so that the path traversed by the wheels of the host vehicle lie within the path traversed by the mine roller system as it goes round a corner as well as in a straight line.
Mine roller systems that have been designed for use with wheeled vehicles are generally characterised as follows:
They comprise a frame attached to the front of the host vehicle. The frame is fitted with a number of IED detonating wheels designed to apply a downwards force on the ground in front of the vehicle to simulate the effect of a vehicle passing over them thus activating pressure influenced and other fuses that may be used with the IEDs before the vehicle passes over them.
The IED detonating wheels are usually spring loaded to allow them to lift up over local obstacles and down into local hollows and still apply a force on the ground.
The wheels are grouped into banks that are pivotably mounted onto a frame in such a way as to allow them to caster relative to the frame. They sometimes have a steering mechanism that moves the position of the supporting frame off which the wheels are castered.
It is apparent that known equipments do not sweep the path of the vehicle very well as the host vehicle goes around a bend in the road.
It is therefore an aim of the invention to overcome or at least alleviate the problem identified above.